Ward Bushee has been named executive vice president and editor of The Chronicle, the Hearst Corp. said Friday morning. Bushee, who starts Feb. 1, will replace Phil Bronstein, who is taking on a broader role as editor at large of Hearst's newspaper division.

Bushee, 58, is currently editor and vice president of the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, a role he has held since 2002. Previously he was editor and vice president of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

"Ward brings a wealth of news experience and journalistic vision to The Chronicle team," said Frank Vega, president and publisher of The Chronicle. "He has long been recognized as an editor who instills strong journalistic values, integrity and sense of community at the newspapers he leads."

Bushee pioneered innovative use of the Internet at the Republic, Vega said.

"That type of multiplatform reporting is what we have to continue to develop," Vega said.

Bushee, a second-generation journalist, started his career at the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian. His father was the paper's editor and shepherded it to a 1956 Pulitzer Prize for public service.

Early in his career, Bushee did stints at several other Northern California papers: the Gilroy Dispatch, the Salinas Californian and the Marin Independent Journal.

He was a founding editor of USA Today as its assistant content editor/sports in 1982.

Before leading the Phoenix and Cincinnati papers, Bushee helmed two other Gannett papers, the Reno Gazette-Journal and the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader.

"I've seen news covered at almost every level, from the smallest daily in California to the largest newspaper in the country - USA Today - and everything in between," he said in an interview. "It's given me a broad view of what the news business is all about."

Bushee is well aware of the newspaper industry's challenges in coping with the migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet, a shift that is particularly acute in the wired Bay Area.

"One of the things that has characterized my time in Phoenix is trying to understand that transition and what it means to gathering news, processing news and presenting it to readers in print, online or other" formats, he said. "We've got to train ourselves to emerge through this transition. People can retain their strong skills in journalism but learn new skills to adapt to the new world out there."

Another project he spearheaded at the Republic was the introduction of 15 community newspapers. The local papers - the Scottsdale Republic, for example - are delivered with the main newspaper from three to five days a week and maintain a strong Internet presence for breaking news on "micro Web sites."

"It is a highly coordinated information-sharing process within the Arizona Republic that makes this all possible," he said. "You're breaking news in Glendale that may have some application in Scottsdale or Tempe. It almost works like a miniature AP wire service. A lot of news flows through our system on any given day. To coordinate that takes a structure that can handle online and print in a speedy way."

Bushee said it's too early to say what his goals are for The Chronicle, which he said he's been reading for 40 years.

At the Republic, McGuire said, Bushee "without question has changed the thinking of the newsroom. He has gotten it to be more technologically and systems progressive; they think online much more than they ever did. They have made great strides with their moves to make it a Web-first newspaper, which I think everybody needs to do."

However, McGuire added, he thinks the Republic has not made similar advances in journalistic relevance, something he thinks is true of many other papers as well.

"I don't think the paper has made enough of a journalistic difference on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis in Phoenix," he said.

A 21-year veteran of Gannett, Bushee was named its Editor of the Year three times and was an 11-time recipient of its President's Ring for outstanding top editors.

Bushee earned a history degree from San Diego State University in 1971. He and his wife, Claudia, have two adult children who live in the Bay Area.

Bushee, who grew up in Santa Cruz County, said he considers that his roots are in the Monterey Bay and San Francisco Bay areas, and he had intended to stay in the region until he got the call to help start USA Today.

"It is an honor to be coming back to my home area as the editor of the paper that serves the greatest city in the world," Bushee said in a statement. "The Chronicle has been my favorite newspaper for as long as I can remember. I have long admired the quality of journalism practiced by its staff and the sense of San Francisco and the Bay Area captured on its pages. I am very excited about the opportunity to lead The Chronicle news staff during this challenging time of transition in the newspaper industry."

Hearst executives said in legal testimony last year that The Chronicle lost $330 million between 2000, when the New York company bought it for $660 million, and 2005. The paper has gone through several rounds of staff cuts. Executives have said losses have been reduced, but have not said when The Chronicle might be profitable.